So, if I wanted to change the headlight on my '69 Olds, it would consist of removing 4 screws that hold the bezel on, then removing the screws that hold the headlight retaining ring on, unplug the headlight, replace with the new one, reverse the procedure & done. The worst that you might encounter is a rusted or stripped screw to slow you down by a few minutes. Now, today to change bulb on my 2007 Saturn Aura. Pop the hood and remove the top plate over the radiator, next turn the front wheels to the right, to access the plastic clips and the bolts that hold the inner fender liner, remove the liner, this will give you access to the fasteners that hold the front bumper on, remove them, and the front bumper (cover?), now remove the headlight housing, unplug the bulb and twist to remove the bulb, install the new bulb being careful not to touch the bulb with your bare fingers/hand least you render your bulb worthless, reverse the procedure to put all of the other crap back on...shouldn't be more that 2-3 hours. I have not done it yet. It was 14 degrees outside today, I may not do it anytime soon as it will remain cold for several days with wind chills below zero! I'll probably get a "fix it" ticket from the police. #&*%.

 

This should only take about 30 minutes tops if not less. I think on the Saturn its 7mm hex screws on the wheel liner along with push clips/ pins then 10 mm bolts holding the bumper on you loosen them give the bumper a push down and a slide forward and that should drop that corner and give you room to swing your arm in there to get to stuff and loosen the light enough to move it then get the bulbs out. That's if I remember right most gm's on assembly are kinda generic .

 

A buddy of mine purchased a late model car a few years ago, I don't remember which make. It had a headlight out, but no big deal. After he bought it then he found out why the seller hadn't changed it yet. He needed to purchase an "igniter" for the light, which was around $700 installed.

Yeah, I kinda like the lights on our "vintage" cars

 

I actually find this very fitting. Today I just fixed my neighbors heat on her 2004 Montero sport. Had to take the whole dash out just to fix a broken plastic piece. All data called for 4.7 hrs. of labor Took me about 5 hrs. I didn't charge of course.



compare then to now

 

Good for you U man. Karma brother!

 

Ya i here ya the 07 fusion the bumper cover must be removed to replace the headlight bulb.The engineers that design them don't have to work on them...thats another topic.

 

Sounds like American cars are coming into line with European models for ease of maintenance.
To replace my wife's Peugeot 307 headlamp means removing the bumper/liner/other apparently unrelated panels.
To replace the heater matrix on my non air con basic Nissan Micra means removing the whole dash, about as involved a task as the same job on my '82 Lincoln mk6 with all its bells and whistles.
Perhaps Henry Ford made a mistake stopping production of the Model T.


Roger.

 

I have a 2007 Saturn Outlook. The official procedure to change the headlamp is similar to what you describe for the Aura. I found you could change the bulb by undoing a few clips to let you peel back the wheel liner a bit and accessing the bulb from below. It works, but requires working by touch since you cannot really see in there. Worth a shot.

What gets me is that when I open my '69 Olds owners manual, I have a nice chart of every replacement bulb in the car. The Saturn owners manual ( volume one of three) lists like four bulbs. The rest simply says "consult your dealer". I find it insulting that the engineers have made simple DIY repairs so complicated that they assume your average Joe cannot accomplish a repair such as changing a tail light. They could at least provide the info and let us determine if it is a job for a pro. Darned if I am giving up a half day of work and $200 to have a dealer change a light bulb.

 

Ha. Funny this comes up today, when only yesterday...



Wife's car developed a radiator leak.

It was at the top of the tank seam, and it's winter, so, I figured, buy some antifreeze, keep it full, and deal with it in the spring.
Well... I get a phone call from her the other day. She's on the highway. The "Low Coolant" light just came on. What does she do?
Put in some antifreeze.
She's very upset. Asking over and over if the car will make it home.
I decided it was worth the $150 and some frostbite to fix the radiator now.

• Remove entire nose piece and grille, including drilling out permanent plastic rivets.
• Remove undercar attaching sheetmetal pan.
• Drain antifreeze.
• Remove hood latch.
• Remove header panel.
• Cut off hoses to ATF lines (line fittings on radiator are inaccessible when installed).
• Remove inaccessible hose clamps to radiator hoses.
• Spend 20 minutes breaking inaccessible fan electrical plug into tiny pieces to get it apart, as you can't see it well enough to find the simple release latch.
• Try and fail to remove fan clutch from water pump shaft (has to unscrew - no way to hold pulley still when turning).
• Remove fan blades from clutch and move rearward against engine.
• Remove two invisible screws holding radiator to frame from the front side.
• Remove screws holding condenser to radiator, and lift condenser out of clips on radiator, allowing it cant sideways and wedge radiator into position.
• Get barely enough room to half-wrestle radiator out, so as to be able to get to lower fan shroud bolts and separate shroud and radiator.
• Get radiator out.
• Swap lines, shroud (containing aux. fan), clips, etc.
• Installation is the reverse of removal.

11° out this morning, and I've only got a couple of things to button up.

In my olds, swapping a radiator is a 15 minute job, which I've done on the side of the road with no problem.

As for the headlights, on the Jeep it's "easy."
You just remove a very long bolt and pull the light unit forward out of its clips, then remove and replace the offending bulb.
Except that the clips are very thin plastic, and the little metal ***** the fit into them are steel, and were never painted, so they rust.
So you have to pull really hard, and when you do, the light comes out, but the clips break, so now you have to hope there are some at the junkyard, because they're unique, and the dealer doesn't sell them separately - only as part of the entire core support panel - and without them, there is nothing to keep the headlights pointing in a single direction.
"Easy."

- Eric

 

My hats off to you Eric!!! I would have traded it in lol . The only thing I work on is my cutlass and that's more than anuff for me !!!

 

here's a new car rant...

Wife's friend stops by Friday night, driveway is full, no worries, just drive onto the lawn. It's a newish Jeep, and maybe 6" of snow there.

Later, she goes to leave, instead of backing out she goes fwd toward the now empty driveway, where somewhat deeper snow is, from the driveway clearing. Jeep is now stuck.

WTH, really?
It is all wheel drive. As well a Jeep should be. Slight spinning of some of the wheels.
We try pushing, two folks push, one drives. Nope
Try shoveling, nope
I says, let me try driving it, OH YEAH it's compoooterized. I do not have glasses on, so none of the controls or buttons are readable. Just indiscernible little lights with strange markings on 'em. No mechanical levers in the floor like my oldschool Jeep or truck.

Step on the gas gets wheelspin, which the computer 'fixes" by applying brakes and throttling the engine back so that it basically does nothing.

Jeep owner and the wife later try turning off the traction control, but even then,,, the JEEP cannot MOVE in SIX INCHES OF SNOW with no hill at all. SHAME ON YOU.

Meanwhile, I am getting the ****** strap out of the truck, which is behind 3 vehicles and a lot of snow. Move the fam car, get out the '99 Caravan and put it near the Jeep.

JEEP HAS NO HITCH, no recovery loop like every Euro car has... another fail. There is an unused muffler hanger, about finger sized and steel, and it just needs a tug, so I put the strap on that. At the rear of the Caravan, I find mainly the leaf spring, so I tie the 4" strap onto that. 2 good tugs and the Jeep is free.

Most shameful performance ever by a Jeep.

Kudos to the Caravan, which just continues to continue. And goes thru snow.

 

I did a rad on my 04 Durango. It was easier than doing the rad on my 66 Delta.

 

The headlights on my 2 Hyundais are very easy 5 mins easy and no tools. It is about the only thing that is easy and I can fix.

Larry

 

Ha Ha Octania, that's funny!

I've got to say that the QuadraDrive in our Jeep is great - it's basically got three mechanical limited slip differentials: Front, Rear, and transfer case. They will lock as needed, sending power to whatever wheel is in contact with the ground, then grip with the others as they bite, and it won't dig itself into a hole.

None of that traction control BS either.

What model Jeep was it, so I can avoid buying one?

- Eric

 

To replace headlight bulbs on a vw you gotta take the bumper off to get to the bottom bolts to take the light out. To get the radiator off you gotta take off the reinforcement then the core support then take the radiator off the core support.

On lexus you have to take the bumper off which takes me a whopping 10 minutes then 5 to take the headlight out and swap bulbs. All together under 30 min. Job. Working on new cars ain't do bad really. The hard ones are the german cars , japanese cars are super easy and domestics are complicated not by over engineering but a combination of horrible planning and tight locations.

 

Wow - amazing tales of just trying to fix easy stuff. Makes me really love my old stuff and hate the new.
And why do cars break so much in the middle of winter? Thanks Murph...
Caddy popped its water pump last year at this time, no this year I get its first check engine light. It should be a "check your wallet" light! Anyway i pull the codes and it is EGR performance. Manual says to pull and clean it - just 2 bolts. I pop the hood that night and look - there it is on the top of the engine! Great. Well the fuel rail is attached to one bolt with its 1/8" thick stainless bracket. Long story short is that the engine top cover, fuel rail with all 8 injectors, brake booster hose, PCV pipes and plug wires had to be pulled. First I had to blow out a ton of rat crap from the last year's infestation - yuck.
So what should have been 30 minutes turned to 5 hours. This is my last "new" car.

 

X2.

Never had to change the lights yet in my wifes 96 Saturn. But to do it just requires the light pods to come out - less than 5 minutes out/in per side. Very easy car to work on.

 

I don't thin k they do this anymore but a few years ago some Fiat models would light up the bulb failure warning on the dash.
No problem, changing the bulb is simple enough, BUT to get the warning light out you had to visit the dealer and pay a 1 hour (minimum) labor charge to have them attach their unique tool to reset the light.
I think they stopped this practice in the UK when they realised they couldn't make any fleet sales.


Roger.

 

Mrs. Oldspackrats 2003 Yukon, 5.3 litre with 212,000 miles had a squeek which I thought was a serp. belt. Well when she was about an hour away in a McPukes drivethrough, the WATER PUMP decided to lock up & throw the belt off. It has been so cold & snowy, I thought the BELT could wait a little longer till I got a chance to change it, oops! So I pack up all the tools I think it will take to change it, & many more just in case & head her way. Local parts store says it could be 1 of 3 pumps. Luckily they have all three in stock so I buy them all & replace the pump in the Mcd. parking lot at 8 o'clock at night in 20 degree weather. Really not to bad, took right at a hour & a half off & back on & returned the 2 unneeded pumps. Cost me about $90 with pump & coolant, hate to think what the tow charge & dealership price would have been.
Even though I sometimes don't like working on cars, I'm so thankful that I do have the skills & tools to do it.

 

Well, that's good to hear! With the other "Tales of automotive terror" listed here, I should quit my whining and have at it.....mebbe

 

Hense the reason Asia is Kicking Our Dumb AZZES... 10 year warranty to boot. I still wont buy one.

 

Odd. My 95 Olds Regency Elite had a bulb failure warning on the dash. The car had the optional digital dash and warning center. It would tell me if it was a tail light/brake light/side light/etc. Made it really easy to locate and fix. Once the bulb was replaced the on board puter recognized the fix and reset itself automatically. I really miss that car.

 

Follow Infiniti's instructions, and changing a headlamp means tearing apart the front end.

Turn the wheel fully for access to the front inner fender, remove two screws, and you're done in 10 minutes tops. And you even get to sit down.

 

Amen, Brutha.

- Eric